I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.
—H. Rap Brown, 1967Quotes
All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.
—Al Smith, 1933The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1787What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1830I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.
—John Maynard Keynes, 1917The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.
—LaoziOn the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.
—Francis Bacon, 1625The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
—H.L. Mencken, 1921My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.
—Frederick the Great, c. 1770People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.
—Robert Byrd, 2005Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.
—Immanuel Kant, 1784The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968